Exploring Depression and Suicide in The Cat Lady

The Cat Lady begins and ends with suicide. Video games have continued to mature as a storytelling medium over the years. We have seen an increasing number of titles sincerely grapple with the tougher aspects of the human experience. The Cat Lady, released in 2012, is a game with depression and suicide at the core of its narrative. The player takes part in a story whose characters struggle with their depressive demons, stepping into the shoes of a woman who is healing from her own depressive and suicidal experiences.

You play as Susan Ashworth. The game opens with you committing suicide. You appear in some sort of afterlife. Meeting an entity who refers to herself as the Queen of Maggots, she tells you she is sending you back to kill five people, who she refers to as Parasites. She is also sending you back as an immortal.

After your exchange with the Queen of Maggots you are sent back to the living world and you wake up in the hospital. Working to get out of the hospital you face off against the first Parasite, a deranged doctor that tortures people for artistic pleasure. Returning home you are greeted by a young woman, Mitzi, who wants to become your roommate. As you continue to play out the story, it is revealed Susan used to be married and had a daughter. Her daughter died and her husband drank himself to death. It is revealed that Mitzi is dying from cancer and is tracking down someone called The Eye of Adam. The Eye of Adam convinced Mitzi’s boyfriend to commit suicide. And Mitzi wants to confront him for her own closure. Susan agrees to help. In your quest to hunt down The Eye of Adam you confront the remaining Parasites until you are face to face with the last one, The Eye of Adam. The game can end a few different ways depending on your choices.

One of the interesting things about The Cat Lady is it establishes a legitimate afterlife and at least one supernatural entity. This creates an interesting discussion around the themes explored in the game, especially suicide. The afterlife space presented in the game is more of a limbo space belonging to the Queen of Maggots. It is never made entirely clear who the Queen of Maggots is. She is old and claims to go by many names. Her role and motives are left up to interpretation. We don’t know why she tasks Susan with hunting down the Parasites, though there are lines later in the game that might provide some hints.

Towards the end of the game the Queen of Maggots suggests she is a part of Susan. This implies she may be a personification of something that exists in everyone. Remember this bit because I’ll bring it back up when I discuss suicide in the game. This also explains the Queen of Maggots’ mission to kill the Parasites. The Parasites are humans who could be said to have no souls. They kill and torture with no empathy. They often draw people in with a false sense of security. The Queen of Maggots wants them dead because in a way they feed off of that part the Queen of Maggots represents.

The player is greeted with the full weight of Susan’s depression from the very beginning. As she experiences what she thinks are her final moments she laments that all she has are the stray cats she has cared for. But they will understand. They always have. When she finds herself in the realm of the Queen of Maggots she can only express weariness. She just wanted it to be over but the Queen of Maggots pushes her back to the land of the living. The Cat Lady is in part a journey of acceptance.

The game for the most part makes no attempts to provide a cure for Susan’s depression. It isn’t something that can cured. It can be treated. It can be coped with. A wheezing beast living in your mind. Some days you can sit peacefully with it in an uneasy alliance and other days it runs rampant taking away the energy you were saving to deal with anything but it. The Queen of Maggots promises happiness at the beginning of the game. At first this seems like a promise for a cure. But it isn’t. Susan is in a better place by the end of the game but she isn’t cured. She herself says that she will always have the “invisible illness” with her but her opening up and friendship with Mitzi has allowed her to better cope with it.

After Susan wakes up in the hospital she has to go through a session in order to assess the risk to herself. Here the player is allowed to choose some of Susan’s history. The player is able to choose whether Susan grew up with both of her parents or neither. The player is able to choose what kind of parents they are. Later in the game Mitzi asks Susan what depression feels like. After Susan answers Mitzi describes what it feels like for her. Each describes their depression in a different way. There is an underlying message that regardless of circumstances depression can infest your mind and that each person’s experience with it is different.

Mitzi and Susan standing in an empty room

Your time at the hospital presents perspectives on how those who need help view treatment. Susan is pretty hostile towards drugs and therapy. The game doesn’t delve deep into society’s view of drug treatment for mental illness but Susan’s own attitude does reflect a stigma people have of drug treatments. Admitting you need drugs is an admission of defeat. You weren’t strong enough. There is also the unwanted side-effects that often come with drugs. The game at one point tries to portray the lethargy and skewed perceptions caused by drugs. And society doesn’t try hard to dispel these unhealthy antagonistic attitudes towards drugs. When you’re on the edge of a mental knife though those drugs can be a life saver. In the end Susan moves on without any drugs but this doesn’t mean this is the right choice for everyone.

Returning home introduces an interesting mechanic for one chapter in the game. You are given two meters. A red one that fills up when something upsets Susan and a green one that fills up when something makes Susan happy. Neither cancels the other out. If the green meter fills up Susan can sleep peacefully, if the red one fills up she suffers a breakdown. Things that cheer Susan up are things like having coffee or a burger cooked just right. Things that can upset her are things like being startled in the dark or seeing unpaid bills. This conveys the fact that what may seem small to other people can make or break the day of someone suffering from depression.

The day after Susan gets home Mitzi enters her life. At first Susan is distrustful. But over the course of the game they open up to each other and form a friendship. Mitzi tells her story to Susan and over time Susan reciprocates. Susan tells Mitzi about her daughter and husband. Mitzi may not be a professional but she’s the only person who Susan makes a connection with. When it comes to depression being able to open up and connect with someone is one of the most important things. Mitzi is able to help her in way no one else had due to that connection.

Regardless of which ending you get, in the final scene of the game Susan expresses how she has learned to cope with her depression through her friendship with Mitzi. Susan admits she will never be rid of her “invisible illness”. Depression isn’t something that can be cured. It can be managed or lessened through drugs, therapy, or other lifestyle choices. But the ghost of that melancholic beast will always hang over you waiting to get you when you least expect it. In two of the endings, where Mitzi dies, Susan is able to meet new people. She goes out with them every once and a while. She allows herself enough of life to not be completely boxed in and alone.

I can’t think of too many games that deal with suicide as directly as The Cat Lady. It isn’t a single plot point that just sets off the events of the game. It is a continual thread that appears again and again. Susan encounters a ghost that wants to commit suicide. Mitzi’s boyfriend committed suicide. Susan commits suicide at least one more time, and possibly another after that. The final antagonist of the game, The Eye of Adam, is a man who encourages and helps people commit suicide online. The climax of the game is a choice between letting your friend commit suicide for revenge or convincing her to move on and living the rest of her days with Susan.

Susan’s relationship with suicide mostly takes place in the first half of the game. The beginning of the game starts with her suicide. To her horror she finds herself in the realm of the Queen of Maggots, faced with the prospect of continuing to live. On replaying The Cat Lady I was caught off guard because the Queen of Maggots implies Susan will be punished for committing suicide. It was jarring in a game that seemed nonjudgmental of people who commit suicide. While the game explores the emotions around suicide it didn’t seem to blame those who attempt or succeed in suicide.

Later dialogue though can be interpreted to mean Susan would be punished because she thought she ought to be punished. The Queen of Maggots is a part Susan. A part that understands her self-loathing. At the beginning of the game Susan believes she is worthless. Suicide just signifies another failure. One she should be punished for. This isn’t an uncommon attitude. Many do feel a sense of guilt for even thinking about it. And again society doesn’t exactly help. Several religious traditions have declared suicide as wrong. A crime against the body. One which can earn you an eternal punishment. Even from a secular viewpoint suicide is often viewed as somehow wrong. It’s a struggle to change these attitudes. To convince others that trying to commit suicide isn’t a moral crime. There is real suffering taking place. And that individual sees suicide as their only option.

The Eye of Adam is a unique antagonist that is hard to read. As a character he is inspired by real people online who encourage and provide ways to commit suicide. There are real forums out there that resemble those described in the game. Places where a pro-suicide message can be expressed. The Eye of Adam is a crippled man who can only communicate with the world through his eye movements. He encourages others to commit suicide, including Mitzi’s boyfriend. He kills his father and tries to goad Mitzi, or Susan if the player lets Mitzi die in an earlier scene, into killing him. A final grand act. We don’t actually learn much about The Eye of Adam. How his physical disabilities have affected his mental health or nuanced explorations of his motives for encouraging and helping other commit suicide. The player gets to choose how things end. You can let Mitzi shoot The Eye of Adam which will kill her also because of the oxygen tanks in the room. You can also talk Mitzi out of it and deprive The Eye of Adam his final wish. If Susan confronts The Eye of Adam alone, due to Mitzi’s death earlier, she fulfills his wish and kills him.

The Cat Lady presents several contexts for suicide. Susan’s suicide at the beginning of the game is linked to her depression. An action she survives and comes to regret. Mitzi’s boyfriend commits suicide. He can’t bear to think about his life without Mitzi or deal with his own emotions around Mitzi’s cancer. Mitzi is willing to commit suicide for revenge. She is going to die of cancer anyway so why not die killing the person who convinced her love to kill himself? The Eye of Adam is willing to commit suicide as a grand last gesture.

The Cat Lady never endorses suicide but also never portrays those who are suicidal or commit suicide as inherently bad. While the game shows you the emotional reaction of those around you it never moves into blaming territory. It sincerely tries to portray what everyone goes through, those that try to commit suicide and those that care for them. Emotions can be complicated for those who survive their suicide attempt. Like many, Susan feels regret. She regrets making the attempt and in the end she’s glad she survived. At the beginning of the game the Queen of Maggots tells Susan death fixes nothing. In the world of The Cat Lady the afterlife is real. Suffering doesn’t end simply because you died. We don’t have that guarantee in the real world. Suicide may end the suffering of the individual who commits it but it does leave emotional damage behind. Coming to embrace life through her relationship with Mitzi helped Susan. This isn’t always easy. Embracing life is a bitch. And sadly some people are never going to be able to do it. While many are able to recover from their suicide attempts there are many who will go on to attempt again and again until they succeed. There are no clear or easy answers when it comes to suicide.

The Cat Lady is a horror game with fantastic and disturbing imagery. It has supernatural elements and its villains are some of the most demented individuals I have ever come across in a video game. Despite all of this the game is extremely well grounded. The fantastical elements help to enhance the exploration of themes such as suicide and depression, not distract from them. The Cat Lady is an example of game that can sincerely explore these issues without using them as a simple plot crutch. The game tries its best to express these experiences to the player. It is a game that presents depression and suicide without judging. A game that hopefully when finished has allowed the player to better understand these experiences.

Bloody Mary

You’re young. You’re at a sleepover and the party has moved into the middle of the night. It’s that time of the night when the urge to tell a scary story begins to rise. A story or two is told then someone says, “Have you guys heard about Bloody Mary?” Among the giggles and looks everyone agrees to give it a try. Everyone gathers in the bathroom, huddled together in your pajamas. Starring into the mirror someone turns the lights out. After a moment of hesitation someone starts saying “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.” Nothing happens. But someone twitches. Someone screams they see something. Now everyone is screaming and frantically trying to open the door. It opens, everyone runs out. The screaming stops once everyone is out. In the end everyone laughs it off.

Bloody Mary is an urban legend that has been around for at least forty years. The above narrative is a typical narrative of those that try to act out the Bloody Mary ritual. I was really young when I was exposed to this urban legend. The version I knew said that if you stood in a dark bathroom, in front of the mirror, and said “Bloody Mary” three times her bloodied face would appear in the mirror.

I don’t know where I originally heard it from. I was that odd kid who liked scary stories and spooked out others with them. There were a couple of times the kids at my daycare went into the bathroom and tried it out. When I was a little older I found myself in the bathroom with some friends, we were looking at a glow in the dark puzzle. One of the older ones started saying “Bloody Mary.” I was the one closest to the mirror. They bolted out of the bathroom and held the door shut, leaving me in a panic. I don’t know if I saw anything, I tried my best to not look in the direction of the mirror.

The common elements of the legend are that you stand in front of a mirror in the dark and perform some sort of ritual. Once the ritual is performed the apparition known as Bloody Mary is supposed to appear. There are many variations of these core elements.

In some versions the ritual can only be performed at certain times otherwise she does not appear. You can either do it alone or in a group. The ritual itself is also varied. Sometimes it is performed with candles. There are a varying amount of times you should say “Bloody Mary,” sometimes you say something different such as Mary Worth which is a popular alternative. And what appears and happens also varies. In some versions you will only see a bloodied face in others she is supposed to lunge out of the mirror and try to harm you.

So where did this urban legend come from and who is Mary? In some versions she remains nameless. She has also been linked to historical figures like Queen Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, the Virgin Mary, or Mary Magdalene. She has also been said to have been a burned witch or a child killer. Among the many many versions of the legend that is passed around by teenagers there are many more explanations of who Mary is supposed to be.

The origins of the Bloody Marry legend are hard to trace. One of the earliest academic recordings of the myth comes from 1976. In this version the name that is chanted is “Mary Worth” which should be chanted forty-seven times. When she appears she is supposed to appear with a wart on her nose and a knife in her hand. When this version was recorded Bloody Mary was already an urban legend being passed among school children. Some of the versions of the Bloody Mary legend do have some overlap with other folklore such as banshees or some versions of the disappearing passenger legend. These overlaps though do not make it any easier to find where what we know of as the Bloody Mary legend started.

It should be noted that the mirror element of the legend has links to divination. Using reflective surfaces such as mirrors or pools of water has long been a method of summoning/communing or foretelling the future in folklore and occult traditions.

Does the Bloody Mary legend mean anything? Is it a reflection of subconscious fears we carry in our youth? Dundes argues that the Bloody Mary myth is a reflection of pre-pubescent girls’ fears about womanhood and menstruation. He basses this conclusion on the blood imagery that often appears in the legend and the fact that the ritual is more often performed by pre-pubescent girls at parties or sleepovers. He also draws upon certain versions of the myth such as one where blood is actually drawn from the participants during the ritual. And another one where instead of looking at the mirror you should look at the water in the toilet or some versions that suggest flushing the toilet as a way of banishing Mary. He suggests this focus on the toilet parallels the flushing away of menstruation.

Norder offers alternative meanings behind the legend. He suggests that the legend might be an attempt to scare children away from occult practices by religious leaders or to warn people away from calling upon the Virgin Mary outside of proper ritual. He also suggests it could be a reaction from Protestant leaders to scare people away from calling on Mary instead of Jesus.

There is another interpretation of the Bloody Mary legend. It could just be a good scary story that kids tell each other. It is a scary story that has the participants act it out, adding to the tension. While it is true that ritual is often performed by pre-pubescent girls it is also sometimes performed by boys or those well into their teens. Given the age of the legend this disproportion can be explained others ways. At the time that this legend started to bud gatherings of boys or girls would have had different expectations.

It would have been normal for girls to have sleep overs and easy access to a bathroom in order to perform the ritual. Coupled with the generalization girls or young women travel to bathroom in herds no one would question the gathering for the ritual. Boys would have had different gatherings such as camping trips where they would have had their own stories to better suite the setting. A gathering of boys for a ritual around the bathroom might have raised some eyebrows.

Another explanation for the ritual being mostly performed by girls is it might have some continuity with another folklore tradition that was performed by young women. A woman was supposed to walk backwards up a flight of stairs while holding a candle in one hand and a mirror in the other. While gazing into the mirror they were supposed to glimpse the face of the future husband. But they could also see a skull which meant they were going to die before getting to marry. If parts of the Bloody Mary legend did grow out of this piece of folklore it might help explain why it exists predominantly among girls and young women.

Scary stories often contain bloody imagery so it is not out of the ordinary. A bloodied face is probably also a close description of what people might actually see as their mind plays tricks on them as they stare into the mirror. There is also another explanation for the toilet elements within some versions of the legend. As I already mentioned, pools of water were also used to commune with spirits. The toilet contains its own pool of water to summon Bloody Mary. Flowing water is also associated with banishing negative or evil spirits. Flushing the toilet in a way creates a source of flowing water in order to banish Bloody Mary.

Bloody Mary is not an obscure legend. It continues to be passed to each new generation. It has entered into entertainment. It has inspired several movies, episodes of The X-Files, Supernatural, Charmed, and Ghost Whisperer. It has been mentioned on Warehouse 13 and parodied in an episode of South Park. The legend has even spawned a horror comedy web series called The Bloody Mary show. The urban legend is thriving and its haunting apparition is going nowhere soon. Bloody Mary will be waiting to grab us from our mirrors for generations to come.

Works Consulted

Dundes, Alan. “Bloody Mary in the Mirror: A Ritual Reflection of Pre-Pubescent Anxiety.” Western Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 2/3 (Spring – Summer, 1998), pp. 119-135. – An interesting article that tries to interpret the Bloody Mary legend as being about the anxiety young girls feel about menstruation. I already argued against his conclusion but the article also sidetracks sometimes into berating other folklorists for not reading meaning into urban legends and folklore. He also relies upon Freudian analysis to make some of the connections that forms his conclusion.
Norder, Dan. “The Face in the Mirror: Looking at Bloody Mary, Mary Worth and Other Variants of a Modern Legend.” 2003. – A pretty good article that surveys the Bloody Mary legend including its overlap with other folklore. I originally found the article online but the site that it was hosted at no longer seems to be up. I searched but it looks like the article has not been uploaded to a new home. Thankfully I had printed off a copy of the article when I originally stumbled across it. It is unfortunate that it is no longer available as I feel it is an interesting and valuable piece in studying Bloody Mary.
Schwartz, Alvin. “A Ghost in the Mirror.” More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. 1984.
Tucker, Elizabeth. “Ghosts in Mirrors: Reflections of the Self.” The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 118, No. 468, Emerging Legends in Contemporary Society (Spring 2005), pp. 186-203.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_%28folklore%29

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Design in Survival Horror Games (Survival Horror Series Part 6)

This will be the last of my articles for my Survival Horror Series. This post is mostly just a mish mash of various design thoughts when it comes to survival horror design.

I am Tank

One of the hallmarks of the earlier survival horror games was the controls, often referred to as tank controls. Like a lot of elements from the earlier games, limitations in design or technology were turned into something that helped to add to the atmosphere of fear. Tank controls in early survival horror games meant the player had little to no control over the camera. Developers took advantage of this by having possible threats just outside the player’s field of vision. This created suspense and unease. The “bulky” control scheme also helped create a sense of panic in combat as the player tried to get their character to fight back.

The problem is that tank controls are outdated now. You can still find games here and there that use them but the limitations that necessitated the use of tank controls are no longer present. Some argue that we should keep tank controls in survival horror games but these days it creates more frustration than fear.

Really when it comes to the controls we should accept this is no longer a good way of creating tension. Players are used to what modern games have given them. Survival horror games are no less freighting just because they don’t have tank controls.

User Interface, Menus, and Inventory

I’m throwing these three together because they all link to each other in a way. These three elements can help or hinder the flow or immersion of gameplay.

Older survival horror games often had the player go into menus to access various items or information about the character they were playing. In a way this breaks immersion. The immersion could be broken even more if the player had the ability to bring up the various menus during tense moments or during combat.

Survival horror games have tried to move away from having the player rely on menus to access items, weapons, or character information. Character information is either displayed in a corner of the screen or is conveyed by changing how the player sees the game world, such as redness at the edge of the screen that intensifies as health drops lower. Weapons and items are now accessible by hot keys or quick menus.

For the most part these changes have improved the flow and immersion of survival horror games. As long as the hot key or quick menu set ups are not clunky or slow the change in design helps augment the flow within the game.

There are two competing philosophies when it comes to how inventory should be handled in survival horror games. On the one hand you have games like the first three Silent Hill games that pretty much give you unlimited inventory space and on the other you have the early Resident Evil games that limited what you could carry. Later Silent Hill games would try their hand at limited inventory systems. The idea behind limiting inventory is that it places pressure on the player to pick and choose what they really need. There is also the argument that limiting inventory is more realistic and that it can help immerse the player.

A well-executed limited inventory system can add to the immersion of the game. But designers should be very careful because a limited inventory system that isn’t well-executed can add more frustration than immersion. Designers need to try to not overload the player with too many items. Items should be rationed out to the player in way that makes them choose between just a few items. If the player is forced to choose between too many items then it becomes frustrating. One solution to this is to have a storage place where the player can store an unlimited amount of items but even here the setup has to be well-executed.

Combat and Weapons

The focus of survival horror games should not be combat. Combat can and should be present but it should be a less present element that augments the overall experience. Atmosphere, world building, characters, and narrative should be at the center of survival horror games.

One of the things I enjoyed about the early Silent Hill games is that combat was pretty easy, except for the tank controls. You didn’t fear a confrontation with most monsters because it was hard but because they were just so god damned messed up. Coupled with the nightmarish atmosphere the game didn’t need to make combat hard. It was there but didn’t take center stage. Most of us if confronted by such creatures would probably attempt to fight back, whether we were successful is another matter.

Later titles in both the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series made combat more central to the play of the game, moving these titles more into action horror territory than survival horror. Something is lost when combat takes central stage. As long as a combat system is well designed, which is arguable for the later Silent Hill and Resident Evil games, you don’t have to worry as much about story, character, or atmosphere. I love Gears of War but it’s not because of its story or characters, which tend to be a bit thin, but because the combat is really fun. One of the things that make survival horror a unique experience is its focus on stories, characters, and atmosphere to create a truly nightmarish game. If the focus of the game becomes combat then those elements are lost.

Along with keeping combat simple weapons should also be simple. The player shouldn’t have access to an arsenal to choose from. Most of the weapons should be everyday things and guns should be restricted to what you might find in an average home. Imagine running around Silent Hill with an M-16 or a rocket launcher, it just doesn’t create the same feeling.

Music/Audio/Voice Acting

I really don’t have a lot to say about music or audio. It is not really an area that I have really delved into. I will just say that the music and audio in survival horror games plays a central role in creating the nightmarish atmosphere the player enters into. The more unnatural something sounds the more unnerving it can be. There also moments when little to no audio can add to the tension of a particular moment.

Really bad voice acting can take a player right out of the moment. The voice acting in video games isn’t always the greatest and this isn’t something confined to survival horror. Voice acting for video games for hasn’t been taken seriously in the past but it is improving. If you’re looking for decent voice actors look for somebody who has experience in radio/audio plays or someone who has done voice acting for animation, puppets, or CGI creations. Make sure their voice acting is good enough for a video game set up. If you ever find yourself designing a survival horror game don’t let the audio, music, or voice acting fall to wayside.

So concludes my Survival Horror Series. It was fun to think about the various design elements I wrote about. I hope these posts have been informative and have helped those who also like to think about the design aspects of video games, especially survival horror games.

Storytelling in Survival Horror Games (Survival Horror Series Part 4)

Given survival horror’s slow burn nature a good story and other narrative elements can make or break the game. While action horror games can get away with simple narratives such as just trying to survive; the constant waves of enemies and combat systems are usually enough to keep the player hooked. Survival horror games require a narrative with a little more investment. Not only is the narrative itself important but also how it is told. Finally there are other narrative tid bits, such as notes or diaries that might not contribute directly to the story being told at the moment but enrich the overall narrative experience.

We’re All Stories

The player character should have some sort of personal connection in the events surrounding them. This personal connection allows the narrative to be about something more than just surviving; the character progresses through the narrative in order to understand or learn something new about him/herself or the world around him/her. This personal connection allows the narrative experience to be something more than running to point A to point B and still being alive. It becomes a journey of discovery in a way where the player is compelled to move forward not because of survival but to experience the story the game is trying to tell.

Silent Hill 4 is a prime example of a game where the player character has no personal connection to the events taking place and the game suffers for it. You feel nothing for the random guy who just happens to get caught up in Silent Hill’s bullshit. Henry Townshend gets involved simply because he chooses the wrong apartment to move into. Compared to previous Silent Hill titles none of the manifestations of Silent Hill have anything to do with Henry or his psyche. The only tenuous connection Henry has with the events taking place is his unlucky choosing of an apartment and his infatuation with one of Walter’s victim. The player has no investment in the character he/she is playing.

man staring blankly — http://www.deviantart.com/art/Emotions-129413985

How We Tell Our Stories

If we step away from horror games for a moment we can take a look at competing philosophies on conveying stories to the player and how those choices affect immersion. We will look at two video game franchises and the different ways they approach telling their stories: Mass Effect and BioShock.

The Mass Effect games go for a very cinematic and epic experience. Because of this there are a lot of breaks from the actual game play for cut scenes. For any plot progression there is a cut scene. The makers of the Mass Effect wanted to tell an epic, personal, and engrossing story that the player felt they were a part of but at the same time they wanted the player to be immersed in that epic narrative. The developers presented the player with cinematic cut scenes to convey the epic nature of the narrative but to keep the player immersed the player got choose what their Shepard looked like. Everyone knows the feeling of seeing someone else’s Mass Effect play through and saying to themselves, “That’s not Shepard. My Shepard is Shepard.” In this way the developers could present an epic cinematic effect through cut scenes while minimizing immersion breaking.

In the first Bioshock game the developers wanted the game to be as immersive as possible. Their philosophy was that cut scenes broke this immersion. The only two cut scenes in the game are at the beginning and the end. The game is presented in first person. Throughout the game when narrative progressing scenes take place this perspective is never paused for a cut scene. The player is always in first person, able to move about as things are happening. This method helps keep the player immersed in the setting that is being presented to them.

Both ways discussed above are valid ways of telling a story. While Mass Effect found a way of maintaining immersion with its cut scenes this is not always the case, being pulled out of the flow of game play can break that immersion for some people. What is important to a good survival horror game is immersion and so it may seem that cut scenes may not be the way to go. While I consider Silent Hill 2 to be one of the greatest survival horror games I’ve ever played its cut scenes could be iffy. The cut scenes didn’t always maintain the atmosphere and dread that the in game play did, coupled with slow paced and somewhat monotone voice acting one could easily have their immersion broken with a cut scene. There is also the notorious voice acting of the early Resident Evil games which has you laughing more than feeling the fear you should be.

This doesn’t mean a survival horror game can’t be good and effective with cut scenes just be prepared that some of the immersion might be lost. At the moment most survival horror games use cut scenes but the use of cut scenes should be limited. The escape horror game Amnesia avoids cut scenes itself by letting the player to move around as they experience flash backs. The player isn’t removed from their first person experience instead the environment around them becomes distorted and the scenes are conveyed through audio only. Survival horror games could become truly frightening if they could move the narrative forward without using cut scenes, reducing the chances of breaking the immersion for the player.

Who has the Time to Write All this Shit?

I don’t want to say random tape recordings and notes scattered throughout survival horror games don’t have their place but often they get ridiculous, breaking the immersion because of how absurd they might be. But used effectively they can help enrich the narrative atmosphere. Notes or recordings of someone in their death throes will make me raise an eyebrow. But a diary where its entries become more surreal would be good way of showcasing someone’s descent into Lovecraftian madness thereby enriching the overall narrative atmosphere. They can also be used to enrich and inform the player of what is taking place in the moment. Fatal Frame 2 effectively uses notes and its version of tape recordings to help enrich the environment in which the game takes place.

How a story is conveyed to someone is important in video games if you want that game to be immersive and grip the player with fear as most developers of survival horror games want to do. Looking at how to move the narrative forward, for immersion, cut scenes should be used sparingly. Along with that if one decides to convey narrative enrichment through things like notes and recordings don’t let it become absurd. Avoid things narrative devices/methods that could break the immersion for the player. The goal of immersion in survival horror games is to keep the player locked in a never ending sense of slow burning dread.

Character Design in Survival Horror Games (Survival Horror Series Part 3)

Fear relies on a sense of helplessness; a dread that you have little to no power to overcome the hellish obstacles in your way. In survival horror games this means most of the time the characters the player plays or encounters is the every man/every woman. Compared to action horror where the characters tend to have lots of combat experience in their past. Because survival horror tries to create an atmosphere of fear built upon subtle things that eat away at the players sanity, effective character design for both the player character and non-player characters is vital.

Who am I?

When playing a video game with narrative the player places themselves into a character much the same way an actor places themselves into a role that has been written. The more substance that has been given to the character the easier it is to immerse yourself into that character and what is happening to them. A poorly written or thin character can break the immersion and atmosphere of fear as the player is finding it to hard to fit into the character’s ill fitting skin.

One of the failings of Silent Hill 4 was the design of the player character Henry Townshend. He is presented as a quite and stoic loner with no real relationships. Throughout the game he is shown to be willing help those in the nightmarish events taking place, yet no personal motivation is ever conveyed. He also has no real emotional connections to anything taking place and really is just involved by complete accident. It is hard to experience fear through Henry because he doesn’t feel real enough to immerse yourself in. The game has to rely on other aspects to help create a dreadful atmosphere of fear.

Not only should a player character be fleshed out they should also be ordinary. It does no good in creating a sense of fear if you feel like your character can kick all the monsters’ asses. Action horror games like The Suffering, Doom 3, or the F.E.A.R series don’t create fear through their player characters which is why they often seem to be generic combat type characters.

The first three Silent Hill games all have ordinary and relatable characters. Harry is just trying to find his daughter. James is trying to figure out how he received a letter from his dead wife. While Heather is on a quest to avenge her father. The Fatal Frame games all have females as the main player characters. Fatal Frame 2 and 4 make their player characters younger adding to the atmosphere of fear; the young are even weaker than ordinary men and women . The Siren series and Eternal Darkness relies on a whole cast of ordinary characters. Rule of Rose and Haunting Ground, like Fatal Frame, use younger female player characters to try and create a sense of helplessness and fear.

Another important aspect for the player character is their emotional involvement in what’s happening in the narrative. It can be easier for a player to immerse themselves into a character if that character is connected to the events taking place. Except for Silent Hill 4 all the player characters throughout the series have deep emotional ties to the events taking place. The first two Fatal Frame games have the player character seeking out a lost sibling. The third installment drags the player character in emotionally by having her capture a picture of her dead fiance. And the fourth Fatal Frame the player characters are on a quest to recover lost memories.

We’re All Crazy Here

Non-player characters are just as important in creating an atmosphere of fear as the player characters. Non-player characters should ultimately be as weak as the player character. Even Maria who is a creation of Silent Hill is shown to be weak against it’s power. Over and over she dies as punishment towards James. As the town taunts Angela she is constantly seeking a way to die. Eddie eventually crumbles before the town’s treatment of him. Even though the cultists throughout the series believe themselves protected even they succumb to the town’s nightmarish powers.

Helplessness is essential to creating an atmosphere of fear. It does no good to have the player character seem weak against the nightmares if another character seems to cope just fine. Those characters that stand in the player character’s way have to fall before the resolution takes place or else a little hope might rise. If even the characters that were supposed to be working with the nightmares fall to it what hope do you have.

And just like the player character should have emotional investment in what is going on non-player characters should too. The cultists of the Silent Hill series are emotionally invested because they believe what they are doing, the suffering they are causing will bring their god into the world. In Silent Hill 4 Walter believes he will bring back his mom.

Any video game could be improved with better character design but for survival horror games it is essential. Survival horror games rely heavily on characters and narrative to help create an atmosphere of fear. The player characters have to be relatable and fleshed out enough for the player to immerse themselves in that character and experience the fear of the nightmare. If there is distance between the player and the character there is distance between the player and the fear. The same goes for non-player characters. What is to fear if you’re standing in a room of superheroes? Any character opposing the player character should be shown to be just as powerless. Only the nightmare and its monsters should be left standing when it’s over.